I just acquired a Dell Inspiron 660, as a replacement for my departed Dell Dimension 4550. The Inspiron came with Windows 8, which is OK, but I want to set up a FreeBSD variant as a second boot option. FreeBSD doesn't seem to get along well with gpt and UEFI, and that's what I'm working with. I'm looking into disabling the "secure boot," but legacy boot on this thing is flaky as a bowl of cereal.

I've been informed that the most effective approach is to convert the hard drive (a 1TB SATA in this case) to conventional MBR. However, doing that would destroy the Windows 8 instillation, and I'm not able to to that. Windows does have it's uses, and in the short run I need to keep it available.

An attempt to install FreeBSD to a section of the hard drive failed. It wanted to wipe the entire drive, but when I restricted it to one particular partition/slice, it ultimately refused to install; it didn't like the label (/dev/sda7).

For the record, if a rebuild of the hard drive is necessary, and if disabling UEFI turns out to be the only option, I'll do it. But I want to explore other options first.

What I'm now considering is this:

- Acquire a second SATA hard drive, perhaps 500gigs, and put it in one of the two available SATA ports on the motherboard. I've added additional hard drives to computers before, so this part should be easy.
- Install my FreeBSD variant on this second drive, where it won't (or shouldn't) conflict with Windows 8. In my experience, one operating system per hard drive is the easiest way to go. It's not the most effecient, but it's the easiest. Any boot record FreeBSD wants to create will be on this disc (hopefully). BIOS is likely to keep the system pointing at the UEFI boot record on the first drive.
- Use Windows 8's "Advanced Startup Options" as a means of booting FreeBSD. According to some of the literature I've read, this approach has been successfully used for Linux and for earlier versions of Windows, so it should also work for FreeBSD. It's not an ideal solution, but it's one I could live with.
- If Windows 8's ASO menu doesn't work, could I set up a USB flash drive to instruct the system to boot to the FreeBSD install on the second hard drive? I once did this with a floppy disc; booting from the floppy would instruct the BIOS to boot to a Linux instillation. It was intended as a rescue disc should the boot manager flake out. Again, not ideal, but I could live with it.

I just want my Beestie back!

My biggest concern is how the UEFI system will react to a second hard drive. FreeBSD is likely to set that drive up using a more conventional MBR system, so I would have two different disc technologies existing on the same machine. Will that cause UEFI to balk?

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. If this is covered in an FAQ or in another forum thread, please point me in the right direction (I don't have time to do much searching at the moment, sadly).

Thanks! These essays are certainly enlightening. My computer already has UEFI installed, and I don't want to convert it. But I now have a better idea of what's going on down there, and what to be careful of. My idea of using a second hard drive seems better by the minute.

I suspect that part of my problem might have been the installer for PC-BSD. That's the FreeBSD variant I use, and I apologize to all the purists in the room. [grin] In short, if you select any disc install option different from the default, it fails to install. But the last time I installed it (on the aforementioned Dimension box), when I gave PC-BSD it's own hard drive, everything went fine.

The fact that the Dimension suffered a mobo failure about two weeks later wasn't PC-BSD's fault. Or Windows XP's for that matter.

Anyway, what I want to do is something akin to what this guy did with Ubuntu Linux:

I would put the FreeBSD loader in the boot sector of the second hard drive, then use the Windows 8 boot loader in a relay, like this guy did. I understand that other users have done similar things with Grub.

I tried to install PC-BSD using the procedure the above guy used for Ubuntu. I followed the instructions to the letter, and the install still failed. Near as I can tell, PC-BSD simply won't install to a gpt hard disc unless it can reformat the whole thing.

What's worse, the bios is now a mess, and the computer won't boot in any mode save diagnostic. I'm tinkering with bios to fix this, but so far I'm not having much luck.

And at this point, I'm seriously wondering why I'm doing this. I'm ready to say "the hell with it" and purge Windows 8 in favor of PC-BSD. Which is the operating system I would prefer to use anyway...

I'm revisiting this issue. Windows 8 is working fine, especially since I "spiked" it with an X-Window server and a conventional desktop shell. However, for some stuff I still expect to need PC-BSD.

So I'm again wondering if the second hard drive option will work? My earlier experience showed me that Windows 8 and PC-BSD can't live on the same hard drive. But since I may soon have the option of adding a 2TB hard drive to the SATA array (and that's a strange story in itself), PC-BSD may be able to move in to the vacant drive.

In my experience, PC-BSD doesn't make a good room mate with other operating systems, but it's generally a good neighbor.